In actuality, President-elect Trump — not candidate Trump — ordered Flynn to contact Russia. The designation matters because it means Election Day had already passed when Trump gave the order. Since Trump had already been elected to the presidency, the president-elect’s direction to Flynn could not be considered collusion.

Ross was forced to correct his initial report more than seven hours later on “World News Tonight.”

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ABC News issued a statement the following day stating, “We deeply regret and apologize for the serious error we made yesterday. The reporting conveyed by Brian Ross during the special report had not been fully vetted through our editorial standards process.”

Believing that actual evidence existed to prove Trump colluded with Russian agents, stock markets took a nose dove upon the report.

“I don’t even know how many times we’ve talked about this, how many times we have talked about the need to get it right,” he continued. “That how we have to be right and not first. About how in this particular moment, with the stakes as high as these stakes are right now, we cannot afford to get it wrong.”

Understanding the seriousness of his error, Ross took to social media to acknowledge the disciplinary action ABC News was taking against him.

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My job is to hold people accountable and that's why I agree with being held accountable myself.

Having long called the FBI investigation into alleged Russian collusion a witch hunt, Trump seized upon ABC’s botched report, even calling on people who lost money on the stock market plunge to sue ABC.

People who lost money when the Stock Market went down 350 points based on the False and Dishonest reporting of Brian Ross of @ABC News (he has been suspended), should consider hiring a lawyer and suing ABC for the damages this bad reporting has caused – many millions of dollars!